English poet and Shakespeare contemporary John Donne's _____ much admired during his lifetime (1572-1631) and in the decades that followed,...

Sentence Structure

• English poet and Shakespeare contemporary John Donne's works [?]
• much admired during his lifetime (1572–1631)
• and in the decades that followed,
• had,
• at the time of their enthusiastic rediscovery
  • by the early twentieth-century modernists,
• been essentially gathering dust for the intervening 250 years.

Understanding the Meaning

The sentence starts by identifying whose works we're talking about:

• 'English poet and Shakespeare contemporary John Donne's works'
  • We're going to learn something about John Donne's works
  • (He was a poet who lived around the same time as Shakespeare)

This is where we have the blank. Let's look at the choices:

• Choice A: works were
• Choice B: works, were
• Choice C: works,
• Choice D: works had been

The choices are asking us to decide whether we need a comma after "works" and whether we need to add a verb like "were" or "had been." To see what works here, let's read the rest of the sentence and understand what it's saying!

The sentence continues with:

• 'much admired during his lifetime (1572–1631) and in the decades that followed'
  • This tells us that Donne's works were very popular when he was alive (1572-1631) and for some time after.

Then the sentence continues:

• 'had, at the time of their enthusiastic rediscovery by the early twentieth-century modernists, been essentially gathering dust for the intervening 250 years.'

Now let's really understand what this is telling us:

• 'Gathering dust'
  • is a way of saying something has been forgotten or ignored
  • like when old books literally collect dust on a shelf because no one is reading them

• 'For the intervening 250 years'
  • means for the 250 years that came between when Donne died (and his works were popular) and the early 1900s

• 'At the time of their enthusiastic rediscovery by the early twentieth-century modernists'
  • tells us when this gathering dust period ended
  • when modernist writers in the early 1900s got excited about Donne's work again

So the complete picture is:

• Donne's works were popular during his life and shortly after, but then they sat forgotten for 250 years until the modernists rediscovered them in the early 1900s.

What do we notice about the structure here?

• The core sentence is: "John Donne's works had been gathering dust for 250 years"
  • "works" = subject
  • "had been gathering dust" = the main verb telling us what happened to these works

• But between the subject "works" and the verb "had been gathering," there's a phrase giving us extra information:
  • "much admired during his lifetime (1572–1631) and in the decades that followed"
  • This is a descriptive phrase that adds context about when the works were popular
  • It's not essential to the basic sentence - we could remove it and still have: "John Donne's works had been gathering dust"

• This type of inserted descriptive phrase needs to be set off with commas on both sides:
  • Comma after "works" to start the phrase
  • Comma after "followed" to end the phrase (already there)

• We don't need a verb like "were" or "had been" after "works" because the main verb comes later: "had been gathering dust"
  • Adding another verb would create two competing main verbs

So we need Choice C: "works," - just the comma to set off the descriptive phrase, no additional verb.

GRAMMAR CONCEPT APPLIED

Using Commas to Set Off Descriptive Phrases That Interrupt Subject and Verb

When a descriptive phrase providing extra, non-essential information is inserted between a subject and its verb, that phrase needs to be set off with commas on both sides:

Pattern:

• Subject, [descriptive phrase], Verb

Examples:

1. Basic sentence: "The painting hangs in the museum."
   • With inserted phrase: "The painting, created in 1889, hangs in the museum."
   • "created in 1889" = descriptive phrase about the painting
   • Commas on both sides separate it from the core sentence
2. Basic sentence: "The students completed the exam."
   • With inserted phrase: "The students, tired from studying all night, completed the exam."
   • "tired from studying all night" = descriptive phrase about the students
   • Commas mark where the extra information begins and ends

In this question:

• Core sentence: "John Donne's works had been gathering dust for 250 years"
• Inserted phrase: "much admired during his lifetime (1572–1631) and in the decades that followed"
• Result: "John Donne's works, much admired during his lifetime (1572–1631) and in the decades that followed, had been gathering dust..."

The key is recognizing that:

• The phrase is additional information, not essential to the basic sentence
• It interrupts the normal subject-verb flow
• Commas signal to the reader: "pause here - extra information - now back to the main point"
• Don't add an extra verb where the descriptive phrase begins - the sentence already has its main verb